Topic: Repairing a damaged headlining board

[Wallington]

I've nearly completed patching up a tired headlining board to then be retrimmed to install in my car.



As usual it was damaged on every corner, had creases and tears. The sunvisors mounts were either completely torn away or badly crumpled, the side mounting tabs were papery and weak, and the thin area behind the roof-mounted seatbelts was flapping about on both sides, barely hanging on by the paper coating.











So I've made various styrene patching panels to strengthen and also replace missing areas. I have also attached the templates in case anyone needs to patch up theirs, print them to 100% as they are scanned off A4 paper as shown.







Here are the two patches that will form the front corners where the sunvisors mount:



And here's the side that has the entire corner torn off. I have made a thin packing piece to sandwich between an even thinner sheet on the cabin side of the board for both sides so no edge will visible. In this photo the replacement area that is torn away is already attached to the backing piece:



I didn't take photos of eveything before install. I also ran foil ducting tape tightly around the edges to keep it all together after also gluing the edges together and stopping the inners crumbling out further. It has become very strong, no longer leaves a plaster dust and crumb trail and can also be upholstered over.

This is the rear seatbelt retactor cut out areas, patched on the rear and taped up. You can now lift the entire board using one of these corners, while still being flexible and retain the stock folds and curves:





I can add further pics of completed board if anyone is interested.

[tata]

Nice!

[Wallington]

Strengthened dome light area:



Top of board for patched sunvisor mounts. This area also becomes separated where the slits are for the side bevels, I've folded the overlaps to pull this area tight and hold it in shape:





Sunvisor mount with torn corner patched with filler piece:



Seatbelt retractor patch, unbent at time of photo:



And installed, with taped edges:

[Wallington]

Interior side of sunvisor mount corners, with high spots carved off ready for thinner sheet patches to sandwich them:






And with interior panel to complete corners. These are so thin they are basically flush, you can see through the panel with the previous repairs. For some reason I've saved these pics turned from the above before pics, can see one side is missing the complete corner below. Also, these used the same templates as the thicker tops using the drawings I posted, except for where the side bevel passes through, wanted to keep that a clean line. The sunvisor screw holes will be opened up from the top once the pieces have set hard.

[Wallington]

Completed sunvisor corners. The foil tape exaggerates the edge thickness with the lighting, you can barely catch a nail.







There was a slight dimple on one edge of the board. I'd already made it much better by adding a flate plate on the top side and pulling it flatter. But there was still a high spot on the interior side, was basically a puffy air pocket between the layers that couldn't hold flat.



So carved the top level off flush:



And added a thin plate patch to smooth it over and strengthen the area:



Followed by squeezing the edges into shape and smoothing the edges with the foil tape. It actually looks quite bad, but can barely feel the panel there running your hand over it. I dragged out my roof lining roll and even when pressed on tight you can't feel the raised areas or see them through the vinyl, and that's with the foam backing flattened, which it won't be. So it will be perfect when done, just looks chunky.

[Squirrel]

wow.  very nice.  to think i just use duct tape and about 15 minutes.  that looks very good.  just don't have the patience and time to go to that level.  i've done many headliners but not as nice as yours when they need that much repair. 

[Wallington]

Well, judging by the poor conditon of my other roof trim that came out of the car, it looked perfect with the trim and hid many damaged pieces when installed. The sunvisor area was basically crumbled card pieces held together by the trim and sections of tape and glued vinyl strips held the sides and seatbelt areas attached.  So this is all extra I'm hoping.

The finished repairs at this point. I'm not sure if I should go ahead and get it upholstered straight away to complete it or not since then I'll have to find safe storage for another few years and risk marking it somehow.

[lwmartin67]

Nice work...I'll be doing something like that to mine soon.

[Wallington]

Thanks, bit of an anticlimax with it not being completed though.

[Wallington]

Just bumping this to remind me to repair the pics

[Wallington]

Just went to edit all of the dead Photobucket image links...and they are all showing already. Can anyone else see them? Something is going on.

[quizkid32]

They show up fine on my screen, but I did install the photobucket fix extension for the firefox browser. Nice job on the headliner repair.

[Wallington]

I'm not sure what that is, so assume I didn't do it. I've checked several other links I knew didn't work and all are showing, so far, so looks like PB have backflipped on their previous images at least, I can imagine it may be too late for them to regain any lost users who have moved on and no longer trust them.

[Wallington]

Never got around to adding pics once trimmed in Camel tan lining. At this point I hadn't opened the holes for dome light or sunvisors. It was a cloudy day and dodgy phone pics are a little washed out.

Firebird Camel tan headliner retrimmed 1-6-19 (1) by Aus78Formula, on Flickr

Firebird Camel tan headliner retrimmed 1-6-19 (3) by Aus78Formula, on Flickr

Firebird Camel tan headliner retrimmed 1-6-19 (5) by Aus78Formula, on Flickr

Firebird Camel tan headliner retrimmed 1-6-19 (6) by Aus78Formula, on Flickr

Firebird Camel tan headliner retrimmed 1-6-19 (4) by Aus78Formula, on Flickr

[Wallington]

Sunnier day, kinda. Holes now cut.

Firebird retrimmed roof lining 6-19 by Aus78Formula, on Flickr

Firebird retrimmed roof lining light hole 6-19 by Aus78Formula, on Flickr

Firebird retrimmed roof lining side 6-19 by Aus78Formula, on Flickr


And alongside another original board that was in the same condition before I started. The board I used had a cleaner surface without the excess glue.

Firebird roof linings retrimmed and original (2) by Aus78Formula, on Flickr

Firebird roof linings retrimmed and original (1) by Aus78Formula, on Flickr

Firebird roof linings retrimmed and original (3) by Aus78Formula, on Flickr

And some quick, dodgy videos:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bSzNpL2uZrY

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WP-nFV84ls4